


Drabble Series

by anthonvstrk (theravvenstag)



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mortal AU, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-09 11:23:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13480464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theravvenstag/pseuds/anthonvstrk
Summary: Short drabbles across the fatt multiverse. Will update tags as I go.***1) What if instead of killing him the Blade in the Dark turned Samothes mortal?2) Mako wonders, what makes him different?3) "If he is close enough Samot can hear the singing. In another world they would have called it a funeral dirge. "





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> come shout about fatt and literary theory with me on twitter @bibophilophile xx

The Boy King finds him after, because of course he finds him. Samot has always been a hunter after all.

 

Samothes found shelter under an old tree, curled between its roots like a child in the womb. It is fitting perhaps, he has been reborn after all. He cannot remember his first birth - only that he was not, and then he was - but this one, this one aches. He can feel his barbed breath slicing through him and a weight on his skin that aches in his bones. He wonders if this is what they mean by 'birthing pains'.

 

Samot stands above him resplendent and old. He can see it as if in a dream, all the years in his eyes. All the years that he once thought feeble and charming now catch in his throat. Maybe it is these new eyes. Like thick lines in portrait, he stands harsh against the world.

 

He smiles as he takes out the knife. That at least has alway been deadly. 

 

Samot cuts his hand like a kiss and Samothes he bleeds onto the forest floor. He bleeds and flowers do not blossom, the wind does not shake. He bleeds and it falls, only bound by the gravity of the earth. He bleeds and it is mortal blood, it does not give. He bleeds, and he bleeds red.

 

"You didn't plan for this." Samot says his palm to his palm as the cut starts to heal. It is not a question, because Samot did not plan for this either, he planned for a great victory or a swift defeat. Neither of them expected to be left here in this grey world, lingering.

 

Samothes doesn't answer and the palm starts to slip away. In a fit of panic he grabs it and pulls the wolf close. Because if nothing else it is warm. If nothing else, Samot has always been a hunter.

 

And suddenly he is in the shadow of an oak tree with a god's teeth against his neck and he can feel his heartbeat in his teeth. But not because he is afraid. He is small in a world so much more significant than him now. He mortal, he is replaceable, Samot could kill him here and their war would be more than won.

 

But for a moment it is more familiar than strange. His back against the earth, his lovers teeth against his throat and their hearts, beating in conversation beneath their chests. For a moment the changes do not hurt.

 

And around them the wind stirs and flowers bloom imperceptibly slow, reaching towards a sun they'll never know.

 

So he asks, "Will you stay?"

 

For a moment, Samot does. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written at 3am mostly to get back at @dancynrew, definitely not inspired by that one Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

Mako finds an old paperback in a crool of some space port. It's not been reprinted yet amd normally he's not one for the environment, but screw it he's bored. It's an old sci fi classic, about what humans thought space would be, until the got to the stars and realised they bleed the same. In it there is a killer, and he has an alibi, except -    
  
This is when Mako discovers clones are usually marked.

He spends the next few days in a safe house without a mirror. He undresses and redresses, rubs his skin like a ritual. What if it were something inside him? What if they had buried that as well?   
  
But no. A hunter must be able to identify its prey.

  
When returns he spends hours in front of a mirror and a camera, documenting his body with painstaking detail. He takes blood samples and stumbles through the steps and thoughts if Cass. Another different person might have considered this great until his nature. A better one might not cared at all. But Mako knew there was something, there had to be something that separated him from the forgotten copies. He might not have been the originals, but he was an original.   
  
But his hand gave no answers and his organs gave even less.   
  
And then he saw them, scattered across his back like constellations. He travelled through the stars a lot these days, so it was easy to imagine something to grand being so small.   
  
Eighty-two. Eight-two freckles carved into his skin. Marking him. Claiming him. Designating him.    
  
His hands shook and his eyes stung as he stared at them awestruck. Proof he was manufacture. Proof he was a cog and not an individual. Proof he had a purpose greater than just living.   
  
Mako looked at the brand across his back;   
  
And he smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another payback fic, mostly in responce to this tweet: https://twitter.com/dancynrew/status/963954079943745536
> 
> Again, written at 3am and titled "Samot is Sad" in my google docs.

If he is close enough Samot can hear the singing. In another world they would have called it a funeral dirge. This one has seen too much death, it does not need a tune to slow the descent. And yet, there is something comforting beneath the surface, a low humming that settles under the skin. Almost like warmth.

But Hadrian hadn’t come, and the stars had decided to fall and Samot wasn’t close to anything these days. He might have laughed, and ivory king in a marble castle, settling into the throne of the man it housed last.

Maybe it was in his head. Lord knows he'd had enough ghosts, even without memoriam. And the voice sounded so familiar, a bath in the twilight air, running through the crackling woods, a kiss that spilled around the lips like fine wine. He reached a hand to his shoulder but his fingers worried at air, not even that left, the comfort ripped from him in a gift freely given.

He closed his eyes and let it was over him, like a child at the shore he drowned in comfort. Here in the solitude of his tower he could admit is was both comfort and celebration.

But then the music stopped and there was a moment. And then another, and then another - heartbeats he had forgotten to listen for echoed wildly between his ribs as he waited.

And he felt it. It pooled down his shoulders and settled across his stomach, leaving him sticky with blood and dread. He shook as the waves created over him: I tried, I tried, I tried. The voice was so small, so familiar, so full of regret. He was a god, but he ached as life flowed back into him, sickly and unsure. Like an open wound backwards his son bled, and it filled Samot’s veins, and the wolf howled with tears he was too injured to shed.

And finally, confidence was dead.

Samot gasped as it realised him all his regrets scrambled through his throat, but now was not the time, not the time. He scrambled himself for a thread of the music, caught in the air, and tugged.

But it slipped between his fingers and soon he was left alone with himself, staring blindly at the sun as it sunk beneath the horizon.

Marielda blossomed in the twilight, but all Samot could see were the shadows in between. The city wasn't made of light, it was barricaded from darkness. This wasn’t a castle, it was a mausoleum, and he had taken house like a common thief. He wasn't a king, he came from nothing, to destroy what breathed. Even if his heart had changed it seemed his soul was still corrupted.

Perhaps his ghosts were right, he should leave the city to the elements and find his shattered love. Or perhaps he should cocoon the city so if nothing else his sovereignty remained.

Or perhaps - his eyes skittered over a simple circle crumbling as the shadows swept past it - he should stay and make the process a little bit quicker, a little less painless.

In any case, he had to try.


End file.
